Curses

You're a minor British noble preparing for a vacation in Paris.
You should be packing with the rest of the family, but you've
chosen to distract yourself by rummaging around the attic looking
for an old Paris map. In the process you travel through time and
space and potentially resolve an old family curse.

This is the best Infocom game that Infocom never made. Graham
Nelson captured everything good about Infocom's games: complex,
intertwined puzzles; large, quirky worlds and locations. The
premise is strange, but ties the time travel together
satisfactorily.

On the down side, it suffers from many of Infocom's
weaknesses. You'll make many mistakes that it is not possible to
foresee. For example, at one point you have the opportunity to
travel far into the past. You have only one opportunity to bring
a cat with you. You must bring the cat with you to succeed. You
have no idea that you'll need the cat until you arrive.

For better or worse, Curses is a very long game,
definitely the longest I've ever played. The game is mostly
satisfying, but it can be tiring.

Ultimately, Curses is very hard. Most of the puzzles
make sense, at least in the context of the game, but there are
many difficult ones.